Robert Eugene Brashers
Robert Eugene Brashers | |
|---|---|
 Mug shot of Brashers, c. 1998 | |
| Born | March 13, 1958 Newport News, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | January 19, 1999 (aged 40) Kennett, Missouri, U.S. |
| Other names | "Mr. Maroon" Gary Dean Brashers |
| Criminal status | Deceased |
| Children | 1 |
| Convictions | Florida Attempted first-degree murder Aggravated battery Using a firearm during the commission of a crime Georgia Grand theft auto Impersonating a police officer |
| Criminal penalty | Florida 12 years imprisonment (served 3.5) Georgia 5 years imprisonment |
| Details | |
| Victims | 8+ murdered 1+ victims of attempted murder Several raped |
Span of crimes | 1985–1998 |
| Country | United States |
| States | Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas |
Date apprehended | 1986–1989, 1992–1997 |
Robert Eugene Brashers (March 13, 1958 – January 19, 1999) was an American serial killer, mass murderer, and rapist. He committed at least eight murders from 1990 to 1998 in the states of Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas. During his lifetime, Brashers was not identified as a suspect in any of his murders, and he remained in relative obscurity. He died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1999 to avoid arrest for an unrelated crime after a standoff with police.
It wasn't until decades after his death, due to advances in investigative genetic genealogy, that he was tied to a series of violent crimes. Investigators then linked him to several unsolved violent rapes and murders committed against women and young girls. Police in Austin, Texas, later identified him as the perpetrator in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders.[1][2] Four teenage girls were murdered in the attack, which initially led to the prosecution against several men who later were exonerated.
Early life
[edit]Very little is known about Brashers' early life. Born on March 13, 1958, in Newport News, Virginia, he was the younger of two living children born to Doulis and Nancy Brashers.[3] When he was young, the family moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where Brashers spent his childhood and youth.[4] Reportedly, he committed no offenses as a teenager and did not use alcohol or other drugs. After graduation, he enlisted in the Army; he served in the Navy for several years.[citation needed]
In the early 1980s, Brashers resigned from the Army and moved to Louisiana, settling in a house in New Orleans, but by the mid-1980s, he moved again to Fort Myers, Florida. He has a daughter born in 1991.[5]
Crimes
[edit]Attack on Michelle Wilkerson
[edit]On November 22, 1985, Brashers was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Florida, on charges of assaulting a 24-year-old woman named Michelle Wilkerson.[6] According to investigators, on November 22, Brashers met Wilkerson in Fort Pierce and convinced her to accompany him to a bar. After spending their evening there, he took Wilkerson to a dark alleyway near a citrus grove, where, after drinking six Budweisers together, he attempted to make sexual advances toward her.[7]
Wilkerson refused and attempted to leave Brashers' vehicle, after which a fight ensued between the pair, during which Brashers shot Wilkerson twice in the neck and head.[6] Despite the severity of her injuries, Wilkerson remained conscious, managed to leave the car, and hid in a culvert under the road. Having lost track of her, Brashers went to the beach and threw his gun into the sea.[7] He then attempted to leave, but his truck got stuck in the sand, causing him to start walking the streets in search of help. In the meantime, Wilkerson made her way to a nearby apartment building, where she received medical attention. Before she was driven to Lawnwood Hospital, she described her assailant and his car in detail to police officers.[6]
A few minutes later, Brashers was apprehended while wandering the beach and charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery, and using a firearm during the commission of a crime. He was convicted the following year and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Under more lenient laws in place at the time of his conviction, Brashers was released from prison for good conduct on May 4, 1989.[8]
Post-release crimes
[edit]After his release, Brashers moved between the states of South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, often changing his place of residence. On February 18, 1992, he was arrested in Cobb County, Georgia, for grand theft auto, unlawful possession of a weapon, and theft.[9] While searching his vehicle and apartment, policemen found a radio scanner, a police jacket, lock-picking tools, and a fake Tennessee driver's license. Fearing another prison sentence, he made a plea deal with the prosecutors and pleaded guilty to the most serious of the charges, allowing for the rest to be dropped. As a result, he was sentenced to an additional five years imprisonment, which he served in full, and was released in February 1997.[9] For the following two years, he moved between Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri.[citation needed]
On April 12, 1998, Brashers was arrested while attempting to break into the home of a woman in Paragould, Arkansas. Having been employed by her on a previous occasion, he had cut the phone line leading to her home and was armed at the time of his arrest. A video camera and locksmithing tools were seized from him as well.[9] Brashers was taken into custody, but was later released after someone posted his bail.[citation needed]
In February 2019, Brashers' 27-year-old daughter Deborah was interviewed by reporters to recount some details of her father's biography. She said that she first saw her father in early 1997, after he had just been released from prison. According to her, for the next two years he lived with her, her mother, and her half-sisters. During this time, she claimed that he was sometimes aggressive towards them; he once fought her stepfather and caused him a head injury with a drill; and perhaps most disturbingly, he had made a tape recording of himself making small cuts on his neck and arm with a saw to see if he could withstand the pain. Deborah was inclined to believe that her mother Dorothy, who died in December 2018 at the age of 53, knew about her father's past activities, telling them to call him by a different name and to keep him inside the house.[10]
In addition, she claimed that his mental health sharply deteriorated circa April 1998 and that his job at a construction firm led him to be absent from the house for weeks at a time.[11]
Suicide
[edit]On January 13, 1999, police officers noticed that a stolen vehicle had been parked in the parking lot of the Super 8 hotel in Kennett, Missouri.[12] After speaking with motel personnel, it was established that Brashers and his family had arrived in that vehicle just days earlier. Officers then broke down the door and found him hiding under a bed with a loaded gun, but when they attempted to arrest him, he started resisting and opened fire. The officers were forced to retreat and called for backup.[citation needed]
Within a few minutes, the motel grounds were surrounded with police cars, while Brashers took his wife, daughter, and two stepdaughters hostage. After four hours of negotiations, he released the four hostages and shot himself in the head. He remained alive for six more days but succumbed to complications from his injuries on January 19. His death was later ruled a suicide.[12]
Exposure
[edit]Brashers' name remained in obscurity until 2018, when genealogist CeCe Moore from Parabon NanoLabs was able to identify Brashers through investigative genetic genealogy as a suspect in three murders and several rapes dating back to 1990.[13] In response, prosecutors from New Madrid County and Pemiscot County, Missouri, filed a motion to exhume his remains and conducted additional testing. On September 27, 2018, the casket containing Brashers' remains was exhumed from the cemetery in Paragould, Arkansas, and DNA was extracted from the bones.[8]
DNA testing revealed that his genetic profile was a perfect match for the murderer of 28-year-old Genevieve "Jenny" Zitricki, who had been bludgeoned, raped, and strangled with pantyhose at her apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on April 5, 1990.[8] At the time, it had been established that after murdering her in the bedroom, the killer had dragged her body into a bathtub and submerged it before writing "don't fuck with my family" on the bathroom's mirror. A DNA sample belonging to the perpetrator was isolated in 1995 and then uploaded to CODIS. Investigators were able to establish that at the time of Zitricki's murder, Brashers was living in Greenville, not far away from her home.[4]
DNA also linked him to the double murder of 38-year-old Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter Megan, both of whom were found shot to death at their home in Portageville, Missouri, on March 28, 1998.[8] Both victims had been tied up, and Megan had been raped before Brashers shot and killed both of them with a .22 caliber gun.[14] Approximately two hours later, he broke into another home in Dyersburg, Tennessee, where he attempted to assault a 25-year-old woman. That victim fiercely resisted, however, causing her assailant to flee the crime scene. There was no useful biological evidence left behind, but forensic ballistics were able to prove that the same gun had been used in this attack as with the murders of the Scherers. He was also linked to the March 11, 1997, rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee.[3] In that case, the victim and four other people were inside a home when Brashers knocked on the door and subsequently forced his way into the residence while armed with a revolver.[15] After entering, he tied up the occupants.[16]
In October 2025, Brashers was announced to have been the perpetrator of a murder in Kentucky in which a woman was raped and fatally shot. Further details have not yet been released.[17]
1991 Austin yogurt shop murders
[edit]On September 26, 2025, the Austin Police Department announced that it had identified Brashers as the perpetrator of the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders. The attack took place on the night of December 6, 1991, at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. Four teenage girls, two of whom were employees, were tied up, raped, and murdered in the shop before the bodies and interior were set on fire.[1][2]
A partial Y-STR DNA profile was developed from a vaginal swab from one of the victims. The profile did not match any of the previous suspects; however, Brashers' Y-STR DNA profile was enough of a partial match to investigate the lead further. Testing of a bullet casing found in a drain at the crime scene was consistent with patterns produced by the gun Brashers used to commit suicide in a standoff with police in 1999.[1][2]
Media
[edit]- In June 2019, the Zitricki and Scherer murders were profiled on an episode of On the Case with Paula Zahn.[18]
- In June 2020, CeCe Moore recounted Brashers' identification through investigative genetic genealogy on the ABC series The Genetic Detective, which featured Brashers' daughter Deborah.[19]
- In September 2021, Brashers' daughter Deborah was interviewed about her father on an episode of Evil Lives Here.
Austin yogurt shop murders
[edit]- Who Killed These Girls? Cold Case: The Yogurt Shop Murders, a 2016 nonfiction book by Beverly Lowry[20]
- Murdered Innocents, a 2016 nonfiction book by Corey Mitchell[21]
- See How Small, a 2015 novel by Scott Blackwood[22]
- People Magazine Investigates, Season 7, Episode 7, "Who Killed Our Girls?" (2023)
- The Yogurt Shop Murders, a four-part documentary released by HBO in August 2025
List of confirmed victims
[edit]| Name | Age | Date | Location | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michelle Wilkerson | 24 | November 22, 1985 | Fort Pierce, Florida | Attempted murder |
| Genevieve Zitricki | 28 | April 5, 1990 | Greenville, South Carolina | Murder, rape |
| Amy Ayers | 13 | December 6, 1991 | Austin, Texas | Murder, rape[23] |
| Eliza Thomas | 17 | |||
| Jennifer Harbison | 17 | |||
| Sarah Harbison | 15 | |||
| ? | 14 | March 11, 1997 | Memphis, Tennessee | Rape |
| Megan Scherer | 12 | March 28, 1998 | Portageville, Missouri | Murder, rape |
| Sherri Scherer | 38 | Murder | ||
| ? | 25 | Dyersburg, Tennessee | Attempted assault | |
| ? | ? | ? | Kentucky | Murder, rape[17] |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c Slifer, Stephanie (September 26, 2025). "Bullet casing in drain at Texas yogurt shop links serial killer to the infamous murders, says original investigator". CBS News. Retrieved September 27, 2025.
- ^ a b c "What to know about new suspect identified in Texas' infamous yogurt shop killings". Associated Press. September 29, 2025. Archived from the original on October 3, 2025. Retrieved October 3, 2025.
- ^ a b "Fulton resident reminisces on homicide investigation". Fulton Sun. November 19, 2020. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ a b Ariel Gilreath (October 5, 2018). "Murderer in 28-year-old cold case identified through genealogy service". Greenville Journal. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ Remadna, Nabil; Torres, Jose (September 26, 2025). "'Seventh layer of Hades': Daughter of Yogurt Shop Murders suspect reacts to breakthrough in case". KXAN-TV. Archived from the original on September 28, 2025. Retrieved September 28, 2025.
- ^ a b c Rodger Mullen (November 24, 1985). "Woman Shot in Head Escapes Her Attacker". The Palm Beach Post – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Crankshaw, Joe (November 23, 1985). "Police: Woman is shot after sex argument". Miami Herald – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d Gross, Daniel J.; Cavallaro, Gabe; LaFleur, Elizabeth (October 5, 2018). "Greenville cold case solved: Jenny Zitricki killed by serial killer Robert Brashers in 1990, police say". The Greenville News. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ a b c LaFleur, Elizabeth (October 5, 2018). "Robert Brashers: A timeline of crimes police say he committed". The Greenville News. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ Kathy Sweeney (February 5, 2019). "'My father was a serial killer': Robert Brashers' daughter speaks out". KFVS-TV. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ Gross, Daniel J. (January 13, 2019). "Daughter of serial killer, rapist tied to 1990 Greenville murder speaks out". The Greenville News. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ a b Aguilar, Janet R. (October 2018). "Robert Brashers serial killer in Greenville woman's death". TuniseSoir. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ Bainbridge, Judith (April 24, 2017). "DNA didn't help solve Jenny Zitricki homicide". The Greenville News. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023.
- ^ "Police chief: 'Violent serial rapist and murderer' killed Greenville woman in 1990". FOX Carolina. October 5, 2018. Archived from the original on September 27, 2025. Retrieved September 27, 2025.
- ^ Sweeney, Kathy (October 5, 2018). "Heartland Solved: Serial killer identified". KFVS-TV. Archived from the original on September 27, 2025. Retrieved September 27, 2025.
- ^ Chapman, Bridget (October 5, 2018). "Rape kit helps Memphis police trace suspected serial rapist, murderer". WREG-TV. Archived from the original on September 28, 2025. Retrieved September 27, 2025.
- ^ a b Schreiber, Melody (October 3, 2025). "Break in 1991 Texas yoghurt shop murders sparks hope for cold cases: 'There are other victims out there'". The Guardian. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
- ^ Isbell Walker, Donna (June 21, 2019). "Investigation Discovery TV show takes a dive into Greenville's Jenny Zitricki murder case". The Greenville News. Archived from the original on October 4, 2025. Retrieved October 4, 2025.
- ^ Baker, KC (May 4, 2020). "Crime-Solving Genetic Genealogist CeCe Moore Stars in New ABC Series, The Genetic Detective". People. Archived from the original on September 27, 2025. Retrieved September 27, 2025.
- ^ "Who Killed These Girls? Cold Case: The Yogurt Shop Murders". Kirkus Reviews. September 2016. Archived from the original on September 28, 2016.
- ^ Mitchell, Corey (December 27, 2016). Murdered Innocents. Pinnacle. ISBN 9780786039920.
- ^ Blackwood, Scott (January 20, 2015). See How Small: A Novel. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 9780316373807.
- ^ Pettaway, Taylor (December 12, 2022). "Rape, murder of four teen girls in Austin yogurt shop remains unsolved 31 years later". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved September 27, 2025.